Eucharistic Meditation, November 14

Peter J. Leithart, November 14, 2004

Revelation 19:7
The beginning of Solomon’s sin was intermarriage, marriage to unbelieving, pagan, idolatrous wives and concubines. As I noted in the sermon, there are consistent warnings about this throughout the Scriptures, from Genesis to Deuteronomy to Kings to Ezra-Nehemiah to Corinthians. Everywhere Scripture warns that we must not cleave to unbelievers in marriage. Practically, this commandment is crucial for any long-term faithfulness in the church. Without it, the church’s faithfulness quickly dilutes over generations.

But intermarriage points to a more pervasive problem. The root of the problem is not merely that believers are attracted to and seize the forbidden fruit of unbelieving husbands and wives. The root of the problem is that the church herself is not clinging faithfully to her divine husband. This is both the root of intermarriage, and the effect of intermarriage: Because of faithlessness, Christians marry unbelievers; because of Christian marriage to unbelievers, the church becomes more unfaithful.

The solution to the problem of intermarriage, then, is not simply to give exhortations, orders, commands to our children. The solution is for the church to cling in faith and love to her divine husband. And this marriage Supper is one of the means by which we cling to Jesus, our Husband.